


I'm Still Here Love (like I've always been before)

by BookGirlFan



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Gen, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23507602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookGirlFan/pseuds/BookGirlFan
Summary: The first time Geralt sees Jaskier after the mountain, Jaskier tells him to leave town and not come back.This isn't the story you think it is.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 6
Kudos: 101





	I'm Still Here Love (like I've always been before)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Amazing Devil's Fair.

“Jaskier.”

Jaskier hardly looks at him, just a quick glance and he’s returned to staring at someone across the room. Geralt pushes away his irritation at this, knowing that he deserves much worse for what he’d said to Jaskier on the mountain. They’d fought before, many times, and although it had sometimes caused them to part ways for a while, they had never before parted quite so bitterly.

“Jaskier,” he says again, and this time Jaskier actually meets his eyes. Geralt pauses, trying to think of the right words to say. Words have never come as easily to him as they do to Jaskier, but normally, Jaskier can read him so well it doesn’t matter. Right now, though, Jaskier is looking away again, and Geralt doesn’t know what to say to fix this.

“Get out of this town, Geralt.”

Even knowing he’s in the wrong, knowing that Jaskier has every right to be angry at him, Jaskier’s words take him by surprise. The worst part is, Jaskier doesn’t even sound angry. He sounds controlled, blank, like every bit of emotion is being pushed away. It’s nothing he’s heard from Jaskier before, and it’s scarier than any monster. Monsters he knows how to deal with. How can he deal with a Jaskier who’s not acting like Jaskier?

“Jask–“ he tries again, but Jaskier stops him with a look.

“No. Don’t say anything else. Just get out of town, right now, and don't come back.” Jaskier looks away from him again, shifting his gaze back to the same man as before. Geralt looks over as well, trying to see if there’s some reason Jaskier keeps looking at him, hoping it’s that rather than simply wanting to look anywhere else but at Geralt.

The man he’s looking at seems ordinary. Nicer clothes than most of the villagers, probably someone important. The other villagers seem to respect him, nodding towards him when they pass his table, and that just furthers the impression. The man turns, eyes passing across their shaded corner of the tavern, and Geralt pulls his hood down lower. Whatever this man is to Jaskier, Geralt is not ready to meet him just yet.

Is this why Jaskier wants him gone? Is Jaskier afraid he will say something, do something, to frighten the man off before Jaskier can sleep with him? No, that’s not like the Jaskier he remembers. Jaskier can and has talked about his lovers for hours, but he’d never been worried about how Geralt might react to them, or vice versa. On one memorable occasion, a woman Jaskier had been flirting with all evening had asked him how he could bear to spend so much time around a monster, and Jaskier had immediately jumped into a passionate defence of Witchers in general and Geralt in particular. He’d later turned the whole thing into a song, which had been popular enough they were still singing it in the taverns the last time Geralt had been through that area. 

“Stop staring!” Jaskier hisses.

Geralt pounces on the thread, the first thing Jaskier has said to him that isn’t telling him to leave. “Who is he?”

“It doesn’t matter, just leave. Get out of here.” Jaskier makes a motion like he’s about to physically push him away, but stops before touching him.

Geralt hurts at that. Jaskier has never been afraid to touch him before, and that Jaskier won’t touch him now is just another reminder of how much he must have hurt Jaskier up on that mountain. If he’d known Jaskier would take it so seriously, see it as more than just another argument that they’d get over in a few weeks, he never would have said it. He’d rather throw himself off a cliff than have Jaskier be afraid of him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“What?” Jaskier’s brow furrows. “Of course you’re not going to hurt me. Why would you even... no, you are not distracting me, Geralt, I’m not falling for that. You need to leave.”

“I’m not trying to distract you.” And he’s not, not really. He just wants Jaskier to talk to him. Distracting Jaskier from telling him to go away is a necessary step in that.

Of all the problems he’d thought would come when Jaskier first started following him, he’d never thought one of them would be _the bard not talking to him_.

“Then why won’t you just leave?” Jaskier’s head drops forward, landing on the wooden table with a soft thud. He groans, but the sound, though muffled by the wood, is more frustrated than pained. “What did I do to destiny to be cursed like this? I would have thought that you’d be keen to leave, but now I can’t get rid of you.” Jaskier’s head comes up again, his blank expression giving way to a more familiar look of alarm. He looks across the room again, but just as quickly his eyes come back to glance at Geralt.

Geralt looks back at him. He watches Jaskier take a breath, smooth his face back into inscrutability. It’s less terrifying, now that he’s seen beneath the mask, but still unnerving. Jaskier should never look so blank. Jaskier lives and loves so openly, and despite the numerous times it’s brought him into trouble, Geralt can’t imagine him any other way.

“Who is that man?” The question leaves his mouth before he has time to think better of it. He doesn’t even really want to know, he just wants to bring some animation back to Jaskier’s face. Even Jaskier being angry with him would be better than Jaskier looking at him like a stranger. Worse than a stranger, because Jaskier has always been friendly to strangers, even when he shouldn’t be. It’s more like he’s one of those lords they have sometimes dealt with, the ones that Jaskier nods obediently at when they demand him to come perform for them but tears to pieces with his tongue as soon as they’re away again.

Well. At least Jaskier’s not treating him like Valdo Marx.

“He’s just someone I know here,” Jaskier says.

Geralt hadn’t really been curious before, but he is now. He’s never heard Jaskier use one word where he could use twelve instead, so for Jaskier to brush the man off so easily must mean that he means something special. “A lover?”

Jaskier sputters. “No, and you’re still just trying to distract me. Leave him alone, alright? I don’t want you to go chatting to him and I will push you out this door myself if you try. You might be a big tough witcher but I am trying to save someone I care very much about, you idiot, and that makes for excellent motivation.”

A friend, then. Somehow, that’s even worse. He’s seen Jaskier fall in love many times, and fall out of love again just as often. None of it has ever stopped Jaskier from following him across the Continent. But for a friend – as far as his experience goes, the only thing that will make Jaskier leave a friend is when they shout at him that he’s the cause of all their problems and their greatest blessing would be for him to leave them alone.

It’s hard to believe anyone else could be stupid enough to make such a mistake.

Geralt hopes that this man is very stupid indeed.

“Who’s your friend, Jaskier?” The man has approached them. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Jaskier’s smile is equally insincere, though markedly more flustered. “Ah, Revan! How nice to see you! Let me buy you a drink, I have a story to tell you about something I saw on the road that I think the lord might find very interesting.”

Revan waves him off. Geralt can feel the man’s eyes on him, and huddles further under the hood. He can already tell this is not a man he wants to know. In the morning, he is going to grab Jaskier and get the both of them out of this town–

–but Jaskier might not come.

The thought is a shock. He’s never before had to question whether Jaskier would come with him, during those first days because he didn’t care, but then because he accepted that Jaskier would follow him anywhere. Jaskier has followed him away from temptations of wine and beautiful women, from offers to live and sing in luxurious palaces, even from a lord who had tearfully offered Jaskier anything he wanted if he would only stay. Even when he has tried to chase Jaskier away, it fails more often than not.

“Your friend looks familiar, Jaskier. Someone you’ve sung about, maybe?”

“This one? No, never. He was just about to leave, actually, wasn’t he?” Jaskier turns to him, looking at him imploringly. Geralt doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to leave Jaskier, not when he still doesn’t know why Jaskier wants him gone, but at the same time, Jaskier so clearly wants him to go. Maybe it would be better for him to just leave.

Then he thinks of Roach, already given to a stable boy to be settled for the night in a warm stall, munching on fresh oats, and his will solidifies. He’s not going anywhere. At least, not yet. “I can stay longer,” he tells Revan, ignoring Jaskier.

The man’s eyes meet his and grow wide, then narrow contemplatively. “A witcher. We don’t get many of your kind through here.”

“And he’s not staying here now,” Jaskier interrupts. “Really, G–good friend, aren’t you forgetting about that thing? That you need to get to?”

“It’s been cancelled.” Geralt turns his way, but doesn’t lose eye contact with Revan. This is not a man he is willing to turn his back on.

“That seems sudden.” Even without looking, Geralt can tell that Jaskier is grinding the words out from behind a forced smile.

“It was.” He moves his body back to face Revan, who is looking unduly interested in the exchange. His hood falls back, but he barely notices, just wanting to chase this man away so he can finally properly talk to Jaskier. “Do you want something?”

“I do, actually,” Revan strokes the handle of his sword. “The lord here hates witchers. Imagine the prize I’ll get for bringing him the head of Geralt of Rivia.”

Geralt stands. “First you’d have to get it.”

“Or we could just leave town, and no one has to die here?”

Geralt ignores Jaskier’s babble, pushing him gently back against the wall. This is much more familiar territory. He can push aside the problem of whether Jaskier has forgiven him for what happened on the dragon’s mountain, and if Jaskier really wants him gone or just didn’t want him getting tangled up in town business, and can focus on doing the thing he was made to do. Fight.

They’ve attracted attention. A crowd has started to gather, looking as eager for a fight as he is. One or two of them reach out to clap Revan’s back. Geralt glances at them, checking that none of them are near Jaskier, then turns back to Revan. The man is comfortable with a sword, but still no challenge for a Witcher. Even the limited space of the tavern won’t make much difference, or at least not as much as the crowd. However much the villagers may want a fight now, Geralt is sure they’ll be even more keen for violence when he beats their champion.

For a moment, Geralt regrets not leaving earlier. It won’t be possible to leave now without a fight, and the villagers’ wrath won’t just fall on him. Once again, Jaskier is going to be hurt, and it will be his fault. 

Revan slides his sword free, flourishing it. “I’ll cut your head off, Witcher, and take it back to the lord, a monster just like the ones you kill.”

The crowd cheers. The barkeep is making brisk business, ale spilling across the bar with the speed she and her daughters are serving the pints out.

Revan steps forward, sweeping his sword out for his first attack–

Geralt ducks under and slices his gut open with a single slash.

Revan stops.

His mouth opens.

He falls.

The crowd falls silent. Even the business at the bar has stopped. All eyes are on Revan’s body, lying on the floor, his guts spilling out from his front. The smell of his perforated bowels is heavy in the air.

“Well!” Jaskier says, grinning nervously. Geralt puts a hand out to keep him back but, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work. Jaskier has never been inclined to do as Geralt tells him to do.

Except, it seemed, when Geralt didn’t want for him to do it at all.

No, he’s not thinking about the mountain again.

“Now that that’s been... dealt with, we’ll just go, won’t we, Geralt?”

The crowd looks mutinous. One of the men who had clapped Revan’s shoulder has now pulled a dagger from his belt, and a couple of others look like they will soon follow. Even the barkeep is glaring at them.

Geralt sighs, silently saying goodbye to any chance of sleeping in a bed tonight. “We don’t want trouble,” he says.

“If you didn’t want trouble, you wouldn’t have killed the lord’s vassal, now would you?” the man with the dagger says. The crowd mutters in agreement.

“Now hang on, he was the one who was trying to kill Geralt!” Jaskier replies hotly. “You can’t blame a man for defending himself!”

“He’s not a man!” A pretty brunette cries out. Geralt had seen her flirting with Jaskier earlier, but now she’s looking at both of them with absolute loathing. “He’s a witcher! A monster!”

“Kill him!” One of the crowd roars, and the rest of them quickly take it up.

Geralt doesn’t fight them. They don’t deserve to die. Instead, he grabs the back of Jaskier’s doublet, pulling the bard with him out to the stables. Roach is waiting for him, still saddled, and for once he’s grateful for a stable boy being too scared to even touch his horse. He mounts, then pulls Jaskier onto the saddle behind him. Jaskier’s fighting him, but he doesn’t let go. If Jaskier wants to leave him once they’re out of this town, fine, but if he lets Jaskier go now he knows Jaskier will just try to fight and get himself killed.

It warms him inside to know that whatever else Jaskier feels after the mountain, if Jaskier has forgiven him or wants him to go away and never see him again, Jaskier will still defend him. At least that isn’t broken. 

The townspeople are still shouting and brandishing weapons, but he pushes Roach into a gallop and she easily outstrips them, the few stones that are actually thrown falling far short. Once the town has disappeared behind them, he slows Roach back down to a walk. They’ve got a long way to go yet, and he’s in no particular hurry to get there. The longer it takes, the longer Jaskier will stay with him.

Jaskier stops fighting him a few minutes after they leave the outskirts of the village, but even then he doesn’t stop talking, arguing that they deserved whatever they got for turning on a witcher. Even when Geralt pushes him off Roach, he goes easily, taking only a moment to regain his balance before picking up his argument where he left off.

Geralt doesn’t say anything. Jaskier has never needed someone else’s input for him to be able to argue – not that he’s ever needed someone else for any other type of conversation. A few minutes later proves that true, when Jaskier seamlessly slips from arguing that the villagers would have deserved what they got to arguing that Geralt was an idiot for staying in town in the first place. =

Geralt doesn’t wait for a pause, just asks the question that’s been bothering him since they left town. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

To his surprise, Jaskier handles the conversational change without a moment of hesitation. “Well, if I’d told you, what would you have done? Hmm? You could have left, like I was telling you to anyway, or you could have fought him, killed him, sent the lord after us and we would have had to flee town with all the villagers hating us.”

“Like now.”

“Yes, like now, except if you had left like I’d told you, none of this would have happened! Really, Geralt, why couldn’t you just trust me and leave?”

“It’s not that I couldn’t trust you.” He hears Jaskier’s footsteps stop.

“Then what? Tell me, Geralt, what were you thinking?”

He pulls Roach to a stop. Doesn’t look at Jaskier. “That you were angry. That if I left, I’d never see you again.”

“Angry?” Jaskier comes closer, but mercifully doesn’t step in front of him to meet his gaze as he is sometimes wont to do. “I don’t understand, Geralt, why would I be angry with you?”

“On the mountain. After the dragon,” he elaborates, when he doesn’t hear that little inhale of breath that means Jaskier understands. “I shouldn’t have said that, and I hurt you.”

He hears Jaskier’s inhale. “Yes, you did,” he agrees, but his voice doesn’t match. He doesn’t sound angry, neither the exaggerated anger he’d had earlier or the genuine anger that Geralt rarely sees, but knows Jaskier is capable of.

Geralt doesn’t understand why Jaskier isn’t angry. He’s just pointed out how he hurt the bard’s feelings, right after getting the two of them run out of town for something that Jaskier had tried to warn him about, a warning he had completely ignored. Jaskier should be furious with him. Instead, Jaskier sounds quiet. Not that terrifying blankness of the tavern, with every emotion squashed and repressed in what he now realises was Jaskier’s attempt not to draw attention to them, but muted.

The silence lingers. Geralt can hear Jaskier’s breathing, but still doesn’t look at him. He wants to apologise, but doesn’t know how.

“You hurt me, but I forgave you. I‘ve known you for long enough to know that Yennefer makes you emotional, she always has. I still haven’t forgiven her for threatening to cut off my dick, though, that was below the belt, pun fully intended.”

“She saved your life, Jaskier.” Geralt easily slips into the familiar argument. They have been having variations of this argument since the day it happened, and it’s no more likely to be resolved this time than any other. He’s not sure what he feels about Yennefer anymore, if his feelings are even real and not because of the djinn, but it’s habit to defend her against Jaskier’s accusations.

“Only because she was trying to steal the djinn’s power! Saving my life was a...” He gestures extravagantly, and Geralt realises that at some point, they started moving again. “...a plot point in her scheme, not a mark of mercy!”

“You still should never have had to forgive me.”

He almost feels Jaskier roll his eyes. “Geralt, whether you’ll admit it or not, I’m your best friend. That means I’ll forgive you when you do stupid things, and believe me, I’ve had plenty of practice.”

He’s heard Jaskier say the same thing many times over the years, but some part of him relaxes to hear it again. Jaskier really has forgiven him, and still considers him a friend. His best friend. Finally, his guilt for what he said on the mountain eases, and he feels comfortable enough to tease Jaskier. “I didn’t say we were friends.” 

Jaskier flings his arms out in exasperation. “It’s been twenty years, Geralt! We both know that if you really didn’t want me around I’d be gone by now.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t even try that, you know you would. You could have left me behind at an inn, gone on without me.”

“I did. You caught up.”

“Yes, and then you stopped doing that. Clearly you realised you actually enjoyed my company and stopped trying to get rid of me.”

“Or it wasn’t working.”

“Geralt!” Jaskier gasps in offence. “Are you _trying_ to make me think you don’t want me around! Because that hurts my feelings, it really does.”

A corner of Geralt’s lip raises in amusement. He’s missed this. “I could have tied you to a tree,” he concedes.

“Well, _that’s_ kinky, but you’d never leave me tied up like that. Anything could find me, and it would be on you for leaving me in a forest as bait for whatever monster would find me that you’d then have to come kill.”

As Jaskier rambles on, coming up with increasingly unlikely scenarios for how Geralt could have left him behind, Geralt’s half smile grows into something that almost resembles a full one. If he had found a way to leave Jaskier behind, back in the time when he’d actually considered it for more than a moment, he never would have had this now. Jaskier has stayed by his side for decades, not because he is compelled to by destiny, but out of his own stubbornness, and Geralt couldn’t be more grateful.

One day, he might even work out how to tell Jaskier that.

(Geralt never tells him.

But that’s okay.

Jaskier already knows.)


End file.
